One more post on Baptism and the IMB (posted primarily so I don't hijack my brother's blog comment stream).

On the issue of Baptism and eternal security, I submit once again that a baptism should not be disqualified because of a lack of belief in the doctrine of eternal security (or because of what they believe about Baptism of the Holy Spirit, or any number of other doctrines). Thomas White, in a White Paper for the Center for Theological Research at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary made the following summary statement on the validity of baptism: “The determining factor is the ordinance itself. Was the ordinance performed with the proper subject, in the proper mode, and with the proper meaning by a true church? If so, then it is valid” (White 2006, 10). In most cases, for a person baptized by immersion in an Arminian church, the answer to all four questions is “YES.”

A person who disagrees with my statement can show me all kinds of beliefs from the AG or any other Arminian denomination that are in error and I would agree with them. I am a Baptist, afterall, because I believe Baptist doctrine. The fact that other doctrines are in error still does not change the fact that their view of water baptism is identical to ours. When I was baptized, I could have readily affirmed the BFM statement on Baptism, as could almost any Arminian who practices believer's baptism. Yet, some want to argue that one's entire doctrine must be correct for baptism to be valid. If you believe that, then it's time for YOU to be re-baptized :)

If baptism is a picture of salvation, then only two doctrines must be correct for their baptism to be valid: (1) They must have a correct view of salvation. Few would suggest that Arminians teach a false gospel (for those who do, I have addressed that issue here). (2) They must have a proper view of baptism. (Note to Baptist Theologue, I have already demonstrated that such is the case, but you seem unwilling to accept their stated view.) Let me be clear. My view on Baptism is no different now than it was when I wrongly denied eternal security. I will not submit to rebaptism nor require anyone else to do so merely because some other pastor, denominational leader, or trustee claims I or my former church did not believe what we in fact DO believe.

Further, while I do not expect all Baptists to agree with me on this, although they should because it is the biblical position :), I DO expect the Convention to support my right and my church’s right to differ on this view and to send missionaries through the mission board that we fund. If the belief that a denial of eternal security negates baptism is one that is important enough to disallow missionary service, it is important enough to put in the BFM, and important enough to disassociate my church.

Some have related the IMB trustees’ response to the differing views on baptism to its response to differing views of divorce. Namely, that the IMB does not allow divorcees to serve as full time missionaries. I do not know enough about the history or rationale of the divorce policy or any possible actions at the Convention level related to it to offer informed commentary on it at this point. However, I could envision a scenerio in which divorced persons are denied service on the pragmatic grounds much like they deny service of persons with high a Body Mass Index or certain medical concerns. If the trustees have based that decision on doctrinal grounds, however, and if the Convention has not spoken to the issue elsewhere, then I suppose I would add the divorce policy to the list of IMB personnel policies that should be reversed. Indeed, the Convention acknowledges there is no consensus on the issue. They also list a number of other doctrinal issues on which Baptists have not taken a stand. I do not think it is proper for the mission board trustees to make policy decisions on any of such issues, regardless of any perceived consensus among Southern Baptists. Doctrinal issues must be decided at the Convention level, not by trustees.

Back to the BFM… I think it is certainly demonstrable, that the BFM has intentionally left out certain tertiary doctrines (on tertiary doctrines see Mohler, “Theological Triage”). The BFM statement on election, for example, is intentionally worded to allow for varying opinions including Calvinism. The statement on end times is intentionally worded to allow for various views on the millennium and tribulation, etc. While Baptist polity allows for the IMB trustees to set their own policies, one should not support the Trustees if they were to set a personnel policy that disallowed Calvinists or Dispensationalists or people who preached from the NIV from serving with the Board? Incidently, the same poll that demonstrated a majority view on Baptism, showed a majority are concerned about the rise of Calvinism. Should Calvinist missionary candidates be worried that they may be the next target of IMB personnel policies? Let’s hope not. The poll shows that one fourth of SBC pastors do not practice the rebaptism of Arminians – a view allowed by the BFM. The IMB should not be making doctrinal policies at all, except those that are consistent with the BFM2000 – the consensus document of our Convention and the basis for Southern Baptist cooperation.

Blessings,

Todd

Upholding the Right of the Minorty View -- The Impact of the Lifeway Study on the IMB Policies

Well, the folks at SBCToday have already started using the new Lifeway study to support the IMB baptism policy. I have posted a response on their blog and am re-posting my thoughts on my own blog as well. In response to Tim Rogers, and anyone else who supports the IMB policy, I would argue three things here in response to the Lifeway study as it relates to the IMB policy:

One, I would argue that the 74% figure (i.e. those who would re-baptize someone previously baptized in a church that did not affirm eternal security) shows that the majority of Baptist pastors have an insufficient view of baptism or a misinformed understanding of Arminian theology or both (see my previous posts on this). On what basis, other than Baptist tradition, do we require rebaptism? If baptism means what we say that it means in the Baptist Faith and Message, then there is no grounds to rebaptize a born-again believer who has been immersed after conversion to Christ.

Two, 26% is a significant enough minority to demonstrate that the IMB personnel guidelines are a excessive. The guidelines go well beyond the BFM2000. Our statement of faith allows for this minority view. To restrict missionary service in this way goes against the practice of 1/4 of our SBC churches. That is no small minority. Thus, the personnel policy concerning baptism should be reversed.

Finally, the fact that a majority hold a particular doctrinal opinion, does not mean that those who hold that position wish to restrict missionary service to only those who agree with them. Lifeway studies have shown that 90% of SBC pastors are not Calvinist and 63% are “concerned” with the rise of Calvinism in the Convention. If one reasons that the Baptism policy is appropriate because it reflects the majority opinion, the IMB should hurry up and add Calvinists to the list of faithful Southern Baptists who cannot serve on the mission field.

Contrary to the folks at SBC Today, the new Lifeway study shows not that the IMB policy should be upheld, but rather that it should be reversed.

Blessings,

Todd

Believer's Baptism by Immersion -- I thought we believed this

I find the new Baptism survey staggering. If I am reading the survey correctly, a full 87 percent of Baptist pastors hold a faulty or deficient view of baptism. What we say that we believe in the BFM2000 is not what we practice in reality.

Some pastors it appears, view Baptism too narrowly. According to the study, 74% of our pastors would re-baptize someone because their church does not believe in eternal security. Among them, a full 16% would rebaptize someone from another Southern Baptist church!

This reflects, in many cases, a misunderstanding and unbiblical view of Baptism. First, Baptism is not biblically related to eternal security.[1] Persons are not baptized because they believe in correct Baptist doctrine or because they have a sound understanding of soteriology. Rather, they are baptized because they have repented of their sins and placed their faith in Jesus Christ. A person who has, after conversion to Christ, been immersed “symbolizing [their] faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus”[2] have indeed been scripturally baptized. There is no call to re-baptize someone because they have come to a more biblical understanding of the security of the believer. Granted, some have argued that a person who does not believe in eternal security has a deficient faith and is trusting in a “works” salvation (thus the need to be rebaptized). This view, however, demonstrates a misunderstanding of Arminianism and its rejection of eternal security. I have argued against this misunderstanding elsewhere[3] and am, frankly, disappointed at the willful ignorance of pastors on this issue. I am not surprised, however, because similar false doctrinal assertions are made against our 5-point Calvinist brothers because they misunderstand and distort the Calvinist view (which, incidently, seems evident from the other part of the Lifeway study). In any case, the idea that Baptism is tied to eternal security rather than on conversion shows either a misunderstanding of baptism or a misunderstanding of Arminianism, or both.

Second, Baptism, while an ordinance of the local church, is not confined in its application to the particular local church in which the Baptism was performed. While baptism is indeed a “prerequisite to the privileges of church membership,”[4] baptism is not an ordinance that is to be repeated in each local church. There is no evidence in the New Testament of a Christian being re-baptized at all, let alone for joining a new local assembly.[5] While it was a small percentage, a significant number of SBC pastors would require rebaptism of persons coming from a church of like faith and practice – even another SBC church. This view, again, demonstrates a faulty view of baptism.

While these first two groups have understood baptism too narrowly, it seems another group has understood the ordinance too broadly. The study also reported that 13 percent of Southern Baptist pastors said they would not require baptism of someone baptized in a church that believed in baptismal regeneration, 3 percent of Southern Baptist pastors said they would not require baptism of someone not baptized by immersion, and 1 percent of Southern Baptist pastors said they would not require baptism. Thankfully, these are minority positions. I should not have to argue to my Baptist readers that scriptural baptism is (1) believer’s baptism, (2) by immersion, and (3) symbolic rather than salvific. I thought this was a Baptist distinctive.

Again, I find this a significant problem in our application of Baptist theology. A small percentage seem to be accepting ANY baptism as valid. A larger percentage view only baptism performed by Baptists is valid. Only 26%, it seems, embrace the thoroughly biblical view that baptism is the symbolic immersion of a believer. Some accept a baptism whether or not is was symbolic. Others accept a baptism whether or not it was by immersion. Many reject the baptism of a believer, merely because that believer was not a Baptist. All of these are a distortion of baptism as pictured in the New Testament. Whether understood too broadly or too narrowly, who knew that the denomination that is most readily identified with their view baptism would by and large not fully embrace biblical believer’s baptism.

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[1] Tom Ascol makes this point in his 2006 blog post.

[2] BFM2000, section VII, “Baptism and the Lord’s Supper”

[3]For an Arminian perspective of this issue see the Assembly of God position paper on eternal security here.

[4] BFM2000, section VII, “Baptism and the Lord’s Supper”

[5] Appeal to the rebaptism of the Ephesian believers in Acts 19 is not an example of the kind of rebaptism we are talking of here. Their initial baptism was not a Christian baptism at all because they had not been “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” Acts 19:5 (NASB). Rather, in terms of Christian baptism, they were being baptized for the first time.

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Revisiting the IMB Baptism Guideline

In this post, I will offer two reasons I believe the eternal security clause of the IMB personnel guidelines is in error and should be changed.

First, I believe that the policy is based on a mistaken view of Arminianism.

Before I was a Baptist, I held erroneous views of what Baptists believed. My Arminian pastors wrongly charged that eternal security or “once saved, always saved” was a false doctrine that taught that you merely had to pray a prayer or respond to an altar call then continue sinning all you want because now that you were saved you were saved forever. While, I suppose, there may be some Baptists who hold this view (I haven’t met any) that certainly is not what Baptists teach or believe. To the extent that Baptists do believe this, my Arminian pastors were right to criticize their doctrine.

Having become a Baptist, now 18 years later, I continue to find that many Baptists hold what I contend are erroneous views of what Arminians believe. To deny eternal security, I am told, is to lack assurance of salvation. Many Baptists think that Arminians believe that you may somehow “lose” your salvation because of sin; that Arminians teach that although you are initially saved by faith, your are kept by works. Arminians live in fear that they may “lose” their salvation if they sin or fail in good works. Like my former belief about Baptists, there are indeed some Arminians who hold this view, but this is not a teaching of classic Arminianism, nor the doctirinal position of the major evangelical Arminian denominations such as the Assemblies of God.

However, such a doctrine is not the belief of all or even the majority of Arminian believers. For example, the Assemblies of God, in an official statement on eternal security, states

“As the believer's salvation is received, not by an act of righteousness but by an act of faith, so the believer's salvation is maintained, not by acts of righteousness but by a life of faith!

Being a Christian then is not a matter of works; it is a matter of faith. This must be emphasized. In no case is the sinner accepted by God on the basis of any good that he has done. He is saved totally and solely by grace through faith . . . . Through the process of "becoming conformed" he is secure; his salvation is sure. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).

The believer's security, then, is solely through faith, both in the receiving of salvation and in the keeping of salvation. This security is made possible through the mercy of God in imputing the righteousness of His own Son to the fallible and faulty believer as long as he maintains a living faith in Christ. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

I agree that Arminians are in error in their denial of the doctrine of eternal security. This error, however, does not mean that Arminians teach a works salvation, lack biblical assurance, or are not a New Testament Church.

Second, I believe the policy is based on a faulty view of Assurance.

In the argument about eternal security and its relation to Baptism, some Baptists incorrectly equate assurance of salvation with the doctrine of eternal security. The two concepts are related, but not the same.

I do not find that the Scriptures join the two. Wherever the Bible speaks of assurance, it speaks of one’s present experience with Christ. That is, a person has assurance because of the evidence of Christ working in him. Further, the Bible encourages believers to test themselves to see if they are in the faith, and to make their calling and election sure.

In 1 John, assurance comes with our present walk with Christ as we obey his commands (1 John 2:3), love the brethren (3:14), believe in his name (3:23) and the experience the presence of His Spirit (3:24). No where in this letter, written “so that you may know that you have eternal life,” (5:13) does John link assurance with our initial conversion experience.

When a Baptist is not walking with Christ, he may indeed be saved, but he will not have assurance that he is. A person can thus believe in eternal security, but lack assurance. Anecdotally speaking, I am sure of my salvation, not because of my conversion experience 31 years ago coupled with my belief in eternal security. I am sure of my salvation because of the evidence of the Spirit as he works in and through me and because of my faith in the cross of Christ.

Further, true Arminianism does not foster doubt of one’s salvation. As noted above, Arminians believe that salvation is both “received and kept by faith.” If one believes, his eternal destiny is sure. It is only if one abandons the faith “by rejecting Christ” that one “loses” salvation. In reality, assurance is faith, so it is not improper for an Arminian to say that assurance is based on faith. Further, in our experience as believers, both Arminian and Baptistic views of the security of the believer are tied to faith. The difference is that when an Arminian abandons the faith they say that such a person is no longer saved and when a Baptist abandons the faith we say they were never saved in the first place. Either way they’re lost.

The possible danger of Arminianism, when not properly understood, is that one would have false doubt. The possible danger of our Baptist view of eternal security, when not properly understood, is that one would have false faith (I prayed a prayer, so I’m saved forever). All this is to say that assurance and security are related but not inseparable. A Baptist can believe in eternal security and still not be sure of his salvation. Likewise, an Arminian can be assured of his eternal salvation without believing in eternal security.

I agree that Arminian doctrine is in error. I do not believe, however, that Arminian belief is a false faith or deficient gospel nor that an Arminian cannot have assurance of eternal salvation.

Conclusion

I submit that a baptism should not be disqualified because of a lack of belief in the doctrine of eternal security alone. Thomas White, in a White Paper for the Center for Theological Research at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary made the following summary statement on the validity of baptism: “The determining factor is the ordinance itself. Was the ordinance performed with the proper subject, in the proper mode, and with the proper meaning by a true church? If so, then it is valid” (White 2006, 10). In most cases, for a person baptized by immersion in an Arminian church, the answer to all four questions is “YES.”

In the final analysis, I believe the eternal security clause of the IMB personnel guideline should be reversed. I hope that it will be. In the mean time, I urge those who disagree with the guideline to continue their support of the IMB and the Cooperative Program. Further, I hope that Baptist on both sides of the issue will see the importance of preserving our Baptist Identity. In all things, let us continue to work together for the cause of Christ and for His glory!

Blessings,

Todd

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Note: Nathan Finn has also blogged on the IMB guidelines today.